My dad is the understated, modest type who's reluctant to talk about his service in Vietnam. In fact, he will likely be irritated with me when he sees this, but after years of writing assorted Memorial and Veterans Day tributes about others,...

Good news for all those who mourned the cancellation of the American version of Who Do You Think You Are?, the popular celebrity roots series that's enjoyed success around the globe. It's coming back!

TLC picked up the show and has announced...

Though there's been a bit of a vacuum in genealogical programming in the U.S. over the last year or so, that's happily about to change. First up is Christopher Guest and Jim Piddock's mockumentary series, Family Tree (HBO, May 12th, 10:30 p.m.), starring Chris O'Dowd as Tom Chadwick. Having lost...

In AMC's Mad Men, Don Draper's true origins were something of a mystery until he was revealed to be Richard "Dick" Whitman, a fellow who had assumed the identity of an officer he had served with in the Korean War. The origins of Jon Hamm, who portrays Draper, are less...

You know you've arrived when you've been mocked by Christopher Guest. Guest, who has a gift for putting peculiar subcultures under a microscope (who wasn't captivated by the worlds of community theater in Waiting for Guffman and competitive dog shows in Best in Show?), has set his sights on genealogy...

Not long ago, I received a response to a letter I wrote to a stranger in Ireland -- in 1984. Making the experience more peculiar still is the fact that the gentleman I contacted had passed away in 1990. Perhaps I should...

Having been raised in the days of the traditional news format (my sister and I used to drift off to sleep with a nightly exchange of, "Good night, Chet. Good night, David."), it's slightly ironic that one of my favorite sources today is arguably the best-known "fake news" anchor in...

Prince Rogers Nelson, better known simply as Prince, has the music world intrigued with the series of singles he's been releasing -- most recently, Breakfast Can Wait. Will a full-fledged album be far behind? We can only hope. But while we're in wait-and-see mode, I thought I'd take...

As we mourn the passing of larger-than-life mayor, Ed Koch, who loved New York City so much that he spent $20,000 to ensure he would be buried there and never have to leave, it's worth remembering that his immigrant father, Leib (later...

On the third Monday of each January, we celebrate Martin Luther King, Jr. Day, and this year, it's particularly fitting that his Bible will be one of those used in the second inauguration of Barack Obama. But few know that we could have easily found ourselves commemorating the life of...

The USS Monitor's short but noteworthy life of service began and ended in 1862, with December 31, 2012 marking the 150th anniversary of its demise. Over the course of this past year, I've been telling the stories of some of the 16 heroic Union sailors who went down...

December 31, 1862 -- the day the USS Monitor sank. December 31, 2012 marks the 150th anniversary of the loss of this famed Civil War ironclad, along with 16 of her crew members. She went down in a storm off the coast of North Carolina and remained at the bottom...

With the massive destruction Hurricane Sandy wreaked on coastal towns in New Jersey and New York, it's not surprising that we haven't heard much about Ellis Island. Those whose lives have been turned upside-down are naturally the first priority. But as a professional genealogist and history buff who also happens...

Which of the following describes the heritage of Peter Gene Hernandez, better known as Bruno Mars?

• Ukrainian
• American
• Filipino
• Hispanic
...

Of all the research I've done to date, perhaps the most important is the forensic genealogy I do in conjunction with the Army's portion of the repatriation efforts of the Joint POW/MIA Accounting Command (JPAC). Though many don't realize it, "no man left behind" is much more than an expression....

In just the past week, we've been regaled with the supposedly startling revelations that:

• Halle Berry and Sarah Palin are cousins
• Barack Obama and Mitt Romney are related
• Justin Bieber, Avril Lavigne, Ryan Gosling and Celine Dion are all cousins

My reaction to all this can probably best be summed...

The g-word -- genealogy -- has popped up recently on The Rachel Maddow Show, prompted by Scott Brown's fixation on Elizabeth Warren's heritage. I've written previously about my head-scratching...

In an interview with Piers Morgan on CNN, Bill Clinton mused on how and where he could become president again. Not surprisingly, he addressed the two term limit in the United States, but then went beyond American borders:

"There are only two countries I'm eligible to run for...

I find the recent tendency to grill politicians over their family lore peculiar. Over the last year, Marco Rubio, Elizabeth Warren and Susana Martinez have all taken their turn in the spotlight for elements of their family history that may or may not be true. I suppose I find this...

In April of this year, the 1940 census was released after the usual 72-year privacy-restriction period. On the cusp of the Republican and Democratic national conventions, I thought it might be interesting to take a peek into the past of the families of the candidates for highest office. None of...